In the starlight
by malifcbfan1899
Summary: It's hard to forget it. And even harder to remember it. Based on the song "My heart is broken" by Evanescence. I don't own anything.


She was so close. So close to a place she had once called home. But, it wasn't a home anymore. No place in this world was. It was on the other side of the stars, where their light was eternal, where nobody and nothing could die. Not like he had died.

She had left soon after his body had been buried in the ground, next to his brother's and uncle's. She couldn't face her pain in front all those Men, Elves and Dwarves. They knew nothing of her pain. They didn't know what she had lost. She had left without telling anyone, quietly before they could notice, so nobody could follow her. Where she had intended to go, she could not tell, not even today.

But, here she was again, in the place she had met him for the first time. He had wanted her to throw him a dagger so he could defend himself from a giant spider.

_If you think I'm giving you a weapon, dwarf, you are mistaken!_ she had shouted at him at the time, throwing the dagger herself to kill the spider behind his back.

She regretted for ever calling him any differently, but with his name. She hated that memory. She hated herself because she couldn't remember if she had ever actually called for him, if his name had ever crossed her lips. She knew hers had crossed his. She remembered it like it had been yesterday and when she closed her eyes, she could see his face, pale in fever caused by poison.

_Tauriel._ he had whispered, so gently, so desperately.

It hurt. The memories always did. That one especially.

_Do you think she could have loved me?_

"Kili." she whispered, imagining him standing right in front of her right now, just like at the day they had met. But, this time there was no spiders, no dwarves, no elves, around. There were just the two of them, her hand in his, his eyes looking at hers.

But, he wasn't there. He never was. Since the day he had died, she has been wandering through Middle Earth, trying to find a place where, when she opens her eyes, he would be there, with that small smile on his lips that had enchanted her all those years ago and brilliance far more beautiful than of any star in his eyes. But, he was never there. She was always alone.

She made few steps forward, wondering if she should let herself to go back. If she should visit the halls of the Wooden Realm, the corridors that she had used to know like palm of her hand. She wondered for a moment if they had changed.

But, then, another picture appeared in her mind. A picture of a prison and Dwarf behind bars talking about a red moon. And she knew she couldn't go back. Her soul wasn't healed enough to visit that place.

Halls of Wooden Realm were lost for her. If she ever finds a way to heal her soul, if she ever lets herself to forget, then she can come back.

But, her heartbeat whispered in her ears: _You will never heal. A part of you has gone with him. Until you find him, you will never find yourself._

She felt tears appearing in the corners of her eyes.

_Haven't I cried enough?_ she asked herself for ten thousandth time, but still unable to stop the wave of tears. _I can't live this way anymore. My life is too long to bear it. I can't. I'm too weak._

For a moment, and there had been a lot of those moments in the years that had passed, she wished that she had never met him. That she was still Captain of King's guard, fighting for her King and kin. It would have been so much easier. Maybe she would have died honourably, in a fight, like a true warrior. She wouldn't have wasted all the long years of her immortal life, looking for something that couldn't be found.

But, she couldn't erase the past. She couldn't become the same Elf she had once been. And she couldn't forget him. She loved him. And he loved her, even in that distant place behind stars. And she knew he would be disappointed if he could see her now. He knew she was stronger than this. For his sake, she had to be.

But, grip of sorrow was so thigh. She couldn't free herself. She needed help, she needed him. But, he was out of her reach, cruelly taken away from her. Without him, she was only half alive, just a shadow of a person whom he had fallen in love with.

_You took my heart with you._ she wanted to say to him. _Give it back to me and I will be alive again. Release me, Kili. Please, let me to let you go._

But, he didn't. And he never will. She will wander until the end of time in the grip of love that destroyed her and healed her at the same time. All because of the dark angel that dreamed of her somewhere she couldn't reach him.

Cold breeze suddenly caressed her skin, making her shiver. She has been standing there for so long that she hadn't even realized the night had fallen.

_I always thought it is a cold light; remote and far away. _

Suddenly, she ran. She climbed up the closest tree as fast as she could. When her head break though the branches, she could see it.

_It is a memory. Precious and pure__._

Tears froze on her cheeks in the coldness of the night breeze. For so long she had been running away from those words, because she had thought they would hurt more than any other. She had been trying to forget them. But, now she finally understood why she had come here, why she had to come here. To remember.

It had taken all these long years for her to open her eyes to the light again. Even if it was a sad light.

But, there it was. There _he_ was. In the memory. In the starlight.


End file.
